darksoulsfandomcom-20200223-history
Homing Soulmass
'Homing Soulmass ' is a Sorcery in Dark Souls. Availability *Sold by Big Hat Logan for 20,000 souls in Firelink Shrine after rescuing him from Sen's Fortress. *Sold by Griggs of Vinheim for 20,000 souls after rescuing Big Hat Logan from Sen's Fortress. General Information Homing Soulmass generates up to five orbs of light surrounding the player, which will stay with the player until an enemy comes into range, whereupon they activate and launch themselves at foes like a group of automated miniature Soul Arrows. If the orbs make contact with an enemy, object, or physical obstruction before activating, they will fizzle out and only do a very small amount of damage. When activated, each orb deals magic damage approximately equal to 0.7 times the caster's catalyst's magic adjust. Homing Soulmass activates at a closer range than usual against opponents who wear the Ring of Fog. It will not activate at all against opponents that use Hidden Body. The number of orbs generated depends on Intelligence level, with up to five possible. If they haven't activated or collided with anything within 100 seconds of casting, the orbs will time out and disappear. The following is a table outlining how many orbs are able to be generated for certain amounts of Intelligence. Overview While Homing Soulmass deals high damage for a sorcery, the Homing Crystal Soulmass is superior in terms of damage in exchange for a higher Intelligence requirement. Therefore, Homing Soulmass is only competitive in PvP until Homing Crystal Soulmass is obtained. The regular version has the advantage of being obtainable twice per playthrough, compared to once for the Crystal variant, and is still useful against somewhat weaker enemies against whom the Crystal variant would be overkill. Homing Soulmass' greatest advantage is that it provides standing firepower. It can be cast before an engagement or in cover, and be fired while the player is blocking, fighting or firing another spell in parallel. Soulmasses prefer to fire at the nearest enemy in the direction the player is facing, and have a tendency to all target the same enemy. The main weakness of Soulmasses is that the timing at which they fire cannot be controlled. This makes it somewhat ineffective against melee enemies using shields, as it tends to fire while they are guarding, doing significantly reduced damage, whereas other projectile sorceries can be timed to hit when the enemy goes into an animation in which their guard is down. Another weakness of Soulmassess is that when fighting larger opponents, such as the Bounding Demon of Izalith, the spell will activate prematurely and expire before reaching the target's actual hitbox unless the player or the target run towards each other. Against ranged attack enemies, and many bosses, who don't use shields, the spell is extremely effective, as the player can focus on blocking or dodging while it fires, and prepare new Soulmasses while in cover or between attacks. This is particularly useful in the fight against Dragonslayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough, for example. Notes Homing Soulmass was nerfed in patch 1.04/1.05, dealing less damage.